Public Health

It costs a couple of hundred dollars if you go watch the World Cup at a pub. If you can't afford it, you watch it in shopping malls. My friends in the US and Canada all watch the games at home - for free. But here in Hong Kong, we watch football as if we are beggars. It's ridiculous

Looking back, I do not think that it was a waste. The vaccines have completed their historical mission

Health Department chief Dr Lam Ping-yan, after the government announced it was dumping 2.8 million swine flu doses worth HK$220 million, which were ordered at the height of the worldwide pandemic last year

It took years to extend anti-smoking laws to restaurants and bars, a ban which came into effect last July. It has taken only a few months for activists to take their campaign to curb smoking outdoors. The Council on Smoking and Health is considering recommending that the government should introduce measures to corral smokers into designated outdoor smoking areas.

The undersecretary for security says he is satisfied that 61 per cent of pupils in Tai Po are willing to join a voluntary drug-testing scheme.

Lai Tung-kwok said on a Commercial Radio programme yesterday that the remaining pupils had opted not to take part in the scheme for various reasons, but this did not mean they objected to drug testing.

The government's random school drug testing has generated much discussion on a multitude of legal, ethical, privacy and pupil-teacher/child-parent trust issues. I do not intend to repeat the arguments. Let us learn from other countries' experiences; there are basically two main streams of thought:

Officers responsible for issuing fixed-penalty tickets for illicit smoking from Tuesday next week have been told to give priority to their original duties, raising fears they will not have time to enforce the smoking ban.

Most smokers are complying with the final phase of the smoking ban - and a new measure will soon provide a strong deterrent to those considering lighting up in prohibited places, a top law enforcement official says.